I have a variety of interests, the most significant of which are music and physics. If interested, you can view my CV here.
I wrote a dissertation! It’s about Kate Soper’s opera Here be Sirens. I also had to write a piece, so I rewrote Act I of Ganymede 5. Give the paper a read and the score a look.
I am most recently interested in investigating the intersections of movement organizing, science communications, and art-making practices. I was inspired by a passage in Helen Macdonald’s Vesper Flights about the role science has in telling us ‘why the forest sounds different than it did 50 years ago’ and the role writing/art has in making us feel that loss. The global phenomenon of ‘climate dread’ needs more than just creative responses identifying acute moments of emotional wound-making. We need to imagine ways that our art-making can directly organize change, resistance, and better futures. While this is not at all a new idea, it is something that more-and-more stands in stark contrast to the limited modes of making we have the ready infrastructure to support (institutionally supported performances, the non-profit development cycle, etc.). I am thrilled by the possibilities of finding ways to make music that is as efficacious across the proscenium as it is on a picket line.
In the past, I worked with scientists and chefs from the Crossmodal research lab at Oxford University. My contribution focused on designing taste/sound experiments and experiences which you can read about here.
My opera-making, practice-based research is summarized in a critical self-reflective account that was completed as part of my MA in Opera Making from the Guildhall School. For those interested in a personal and honest account of how as opera is made and how a composer is fundamentally changed by the process, please take a read:
Guildhall Self-Reflective Account
Additionally, here are some recent academic papers:
Statistical Analysis of Timbre
And some thoughts on my own work:
TEDx Talk on my music, specifically Heat Death.
Beyond musical research, I have also spent time working in mechanical engineering. This work has also informed my composition, and I hope in the future to take these skills and use them to build new acoustic instruments. To find out more about my engineering work, please visit my Engineering Page.